Rare Prize
by Pirateweasel
Summary: It would be foolish to give up a rare prize. AU-Sam and Tron off the Grid.


"Why do Users drink this again?"

Sam Flynn stared down at the bottle of beer in his own hand, and tried to think of an answer to the question. Tried to think of almost anything, really, that would take his mind off exactly how tempting the program looked sitting in the chair opposite Sam's seat on the couch. He wasn't having much luck.

Tron lounged comfortably in his chair, a bemused look on his face, as he contemplated the bottle of beer in his hand. Sam had given it to him when they had come in after showing Tron more of the User world. If he had known then how the line of Tron's throat would hold his attention every time the security program took a drink, he thought to himself, he would have offered him toast instead. Surely, there couldn't be anything this attractive about watching someone eat toast.

He realized that Tron was now looking at him, still waiting for an answer, a look of curiosity on his face as he stared at Sam.

"Um, yeah…" Sam said, giving a small cough. "Usually we drink it to relax. Sometimes just for the flavor or taste, though."

"Do you like this taste?" Tron asked his gaze still on Sam.

"It's okay," Sam replied. "Why do you ask?"

Tron gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

"You don't seem that relaxed," he said.

Sam looked back down at the drink in his hands, trying to hide the flush that was spreading over his features. How exactly was he supposed to relax, with Tron sitting there near him?

The Iso's had been meant to be his dad's gift to the world; his father's miracle. And Sam would never try to deny that Quorra was amazing, an incredible person even without her surprising origins.

However, to Sam, Tron was one miracle after another, stacked one on top of the other. For the program to have overcome CLU's reprogramming to try to help them escape had been impressive enough. Then to have survived not only falling into the Sea of Simulation, but also his dad's reintegration with CLU, was to Sam almost unbelievable. It was another miracle that Sam had been able to remove the Rinzler coding from Tron's disc. And that was not even getting into the fact that he was sitting in his living room, explaining why people drank beer, to a computer program that looked just like an old photo of his godfather.

More to the point, Tron was just….Tron.

He wasn't sure when he had fallen in love with Tron; he just knew that he had. It was a lot easier to pinpoint the moment that he realized that he wanted more than to be just a friend to the tall program. They had been going through the Grid together, Tron showing Sam the areas that were needed to be repaired first. The Reintegration had done massive amounts of damage to some areas of the Grid. He had been examining a building to decide if it would be better to repair it, or simply recode the entire building when a shout of warning caught his attention. He looked up to see the code of a nearby structure destabilize, bringing large chunks of it tumbling down where he stood.

He felt something slam into him, knocking him to the ground. Opening his eyes a moment later, he could see that what had hit him was Tron. The security program's face was inches from his, and suddenly he became aware of exactly how happy his body was to simply lie there, pinned down by the weight of Tron's body. He stared at Tron's mouth, watching his lips move, before he understood that he was being asked if he was injured.

Thankfully, Tron seemed to accept the explanation of shock from the fall as the reason for why he was so breathless.

After that, he would catch himself staring, watching the tall program at the most unexpected times. He found himself noticing the way Tron moved, with all the grace and confidence of a big cat hunting game. Little things, like the way that Tron would tilt his head when he was thinking, or the slight frown he would give Sam if he felt something was too dangerous for a User to be risking themselves doing. And if he was watching as Tron stopped his lightcycle and sat up to look at something...…he shifted himself uneasily as he sat on the couch, biting his lip at the thought.

It didn't seem to matter what he told himself, why he could not possibly be in love with Tron…

He's a program.

So was Quorra; and now she was a User….

You're really just falling in love with Alan.

No. Very much, no. Alan was his godfather, the man who helped raise him. Tron might look like a young Alan; however, he was very much his own person.

You don't like guys that way.

True, but he didn't just like Tron, he loved him. The fact that he was a guy wasn't changing that.

Sam sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes as he did so. He tried to sink deeper into the couch, and took another long drink of his beer. He should probably stop drinking, or at the very least, slow down before he ended up drunk. Instead, he took another long pull from the bottle, finishing what little he had left.

"I'm getting another beer," he said abruptly, standing up as he did so. "Do you want one, too?" He walked into the kitchen. There was an unopened six-pack in the fridge, he remembered.

"I'm still drinking the one I have now," Tron said absently. "But if you have more of those crunchy orange things; I would like some of those."

"Cheese puffs? Yeah, there are some you can have."

Sam opened a new beer and quickly drank several mouthfuls. Drunk didn't sound too bad right now, he thought as he grabbed the bag of cheese puffs and headed back to his seat. Maybe it would take his mind off of how Tron looked licking the orange cheese dust from his fingers. He mentally groaned at the picture in his mind. Yeah, drunk was starting to sound good, actually. He passed the bag of cheese puffs over and proceeded to work on that plan.

A few more beers later, and a slightly drunk Sam was staring fascinatedly at Tron; who had tired of eating the cheese puffs and was now licking and sucking the orange cheese dust off of his fingertips. Somehow Sam didn't remember it holding his attention as much when he and his friends did the same.

Tron looked up and pulled his finger from his mouth.

"Am I doing something wrong?" he said.

"Huh? No, why?" Sam asked, caught off guard. He had been imagining that mouth sucking his fingers in, when the question came.

"You were staring at me. Why would you be doing so if I were not doing something incorrectly?"

"No, you didn't….I mean, everybody licks the cheese, and you…your….." Sam stammered.

Tron looked concerned.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No. I mean, yes, but it's not you…."

Tron straightened up. The program who had been lounging in a chair, drinking beer and eating cheese puffs was gone. The security monitor was back, and determined to ward off any problem. He just needed to know what the problem was.

"What is wrong?" he said.

"Don't worry about it, I just….."

"Sam Flynn," Tron commanded, "You will tell me the nature of this problem…now."

"I'm crushing on you," Sam blurted, his face reddening as he did so.

Tron looked at him, puzzled.

"That is not accurate," he said. "You are not applying any pressure on me at all."

Sam shook his head.

"It means that I am in love with you," he said.

Tron relaxed at the statement.

"That is not a problem, Sam," he said. "Why does this bother you?"

"Well….. We are both guys…."

Tron gave him a confused look. "Why does the current gender of our renders matter? Do Users pick genders when they compile?"

Oh, boy, this was going to be more complicated than he had thought.

"It's birth, not compile, for Users. And no, we don't get to choose our gender. You are just born with it."

Tron leaned back slightly in his chair.

"Then why does gender make a difference in who you love? Programs don't choose their gender either; in my old system it was decided by your User. I watched programs have their gender changed several times in a cycle. In your father's system, he coded both genders." Tron shook his head, reminding Sam of Alan when he did so."We just love who we love. Is it really so different for Users?"

"No, not really," he said, "It's just not always accepted….some people don't think that it's right to be with someone that's the same sex…gender. They can make life hard for people who do."

Tron tilted his head slightly as he looked at Sam.

"Do you care?" he asked.

Sam shook his head in denial.

"That's not good enough," Tron told him, sharply. "You need to say it. Do you care?"

When did he become so commanding? Sam wondered. This was a side of the security program's personality that he had not dealt with before. He knew that Tron's orders were always promptly followed on the Grid. Was this why?

"Sam…"came the reminder that he had been asked a question. There was a slight warning tone in the program's voice as he did so.

"No," he said loudly. "No, I don't care."

He watched as the tall, lithe program rose from his chair and came towards him; feeling very much like a mouse watching an approaching cat. He closed his eyes when Tron stopped in front of him, unable to handle the uncertainty of not knowing how Tron would react to his declaration of his feelings. Sam's breathing quickened when he felt a hand on his head, tugging slightly until he would be looking up if he opened his eyes. If this was the last time Tron ever touched him, he didn't want to see disapproval in those eyes.

"Open your eyes, Sam," came the matter-of-fact voice. "I need to know you are paying attention."

Sam slowly opened his eyes to see Tron standing over him, looking into his eyes. He sat there, unable to move, as Tron's mouth came down on his in a kiss.

Amazement at how those lips could be so soft, and at the same time so strong, flashed through his mind as his mouth was claimed by Tron's.

"You…you don't care?" he asked. "You want to be with me?"

"Sam, if you had lived in three very different worlds, lost your mind and reclaimed it, and spent a thousand cycles under someone else's control…" Tron paused and shook his head before asking, "Would you turn down another chance at love because of how that person looked?"  
Love is too rare a prize to give up for that reason." He brought his mouth down in another kiss. When he pulled back, he looked at Sam again.

"That would be a foolish thing for me to do," he whispered to Sam, softly. "And I have been many things in my runtime, Sam Flynn, but foolish has never been one of them."


End file.
